O Flightless One
by beanpaste-chan
Summary: Three avian hybrids are marooned on an island. One's flightless, one won't do anything, and one has a gun. Interested yet?
1. Chapter Zero

Everybody dreams of flight.

It's usually the flightless ones that dream of flight, but occasionally, just once in a while, the ones who can fly dream of flight. It's just instinct, I suppose, to wish for something you can never have (or in the case of somebody I know, something you already have).

I, unfortunately, am one of the flightless ones. I wish I wasn't, but that's just how I was born. I can't change it, and I don't really know if I'd want to.

Who am I, you ask? Well, you'll just have to find out.

Why am I flightless, you ask, in this fandom of flying people? You'll have to find that out, too.

Don't worry, answers are coming soon. You can wait. This doesn't pertain to the fate of the world. This is just a story.

But it's my story.

-Thorn

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**Read and review!**

**I will be working on this one often... 'cause I like the characters and the situations and 'cause I still like this series, no matter if the 4th book sucked. **


	2. 2 Percent Emu

**Yay! First chapter! Enjoy, 'cause it gets a lot better from here. **

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She woke to the sound of seagulls outside of her cave. Checking to see that the other was asleep and praying that another other was also asleep, she quietly crept along the outside of the forest to a cliff. She sat there a while, then ran to the edge and threw herself off.

Shrieking as quietly as possible, she unfolded her wings... and landed heavily at the bottom of the cliff.

"Ow, dammit!" she cursed, brushing herself off and checking for cuts. The girl turned her head around as far as she could and looked miserably at her wings.

They were blackish-gray, feathered, and altogether useless. One could call them vestigial, if one wanted to be nice. The girl called them her 'useless bastard wings', and one would say after watching her jump off cliffs for days on end that the name suited them just fine.

She called herself Thorn, though that was not her real name, and she was about 2 percent emu. An emu (_dromaius novaehollandiae_) is a large, ill-tempered, Australian bird related to the ostrich and cassowary. It is also flightless.

Thorn was 98 percent human (_homo sapiens_), another usually flightless species. She did not lament this fact, unlike most humans. The furthest she got into misery over her situation was attempting to fly and failing pitifully.

"You can't fly, you know," said a sardonic voice atop the cliff. "Your wings are only vestigial."

"Oh, shut the hell up," Thorn snapped angrily, nursing a small cut on her head. She looked up to see the 'another other' she had prayed was asleep; Len.

He was tall, with feathery white hair, pale skin, and dark black eyes. Part of his hair stuck up in a strange and oddly endearing manner, but Thorn knew better than to mock him for it.

Len took out a small black notebook and started writing in it, muttering quietly, but audibly enough for Thorn to hear.

"Idiot... continues... to keep... hopes... up. I suggest... that she... stop... being... stupid and... do... something... useful... once and a while."

"Why don't _you_ do anything useful?" she yelled at him, pulling her brown hair up in a braid with a string around her wrist. "I don't see _you _doing anything to get off this horrible place." When Len didn't answer, Thorn turned away and started running back towards her cave. "Whatever," she called back to the cliff.

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As she had dreaded, the other who stayed in the cave with her was awake. He said against the wall, completely spaced out, his long legs tucked into his chest.

"Good morning," Thorn said as genially as she could. The other either didn't hear or refused to answer, instead staring into the depths of the cave.

"Do you want food?" she asked. "DO YOU WANT FOOD?" she repeated loudly.

"No."

The other was an Asian male, a foot or so taller than Thorn, with unkempt black hair and pale green eyes. He continued to stare into at the dark corner of the cave, completely ignoring her.

"I'm asking you only one more time. _Do_. _You_. _Want_. _Food_?"

"No."

"Well, I'm bringing you food anyway, goddammit, and I expect you to eat it. December, at least look at me when I'm telling you something!"

December turned his head extremely slowly towards the girl, with a calm -almost amused- expression on his face.

"You are so infuriating sometimes, do you know that?" she shrieked, running out of the cave. December turned his head back to the spot where he was staring. His eyes unfocused as he spaced out again.

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**Ah yes, I love these characters. Mostly because they're the most absurd recombinant (however the heck you spell it) combinations I could think of. (Well... I could've made kiwi bird, peacock, chicken, penguin... there are a lot of things worse than my characters.) If you wanted to know, yes, Len and December are avian hybrids, too. December's a demoiselle crane hybrid and Len's an -snicker- umbrella cockatoo hybrid. Yes, that's why he has the weird hair. -bursts out laughing for no reason-**

**Enjoy the next installment of O Flightless One, coming soon to a fanfiction website near you! XD**


	3. OffLimits No More

**To answer your questions:**

**Thorn has wings, but they're so small that they can't support her body weight, so she can't fly.**

**I dunno if I have an update schedule. I'll just try to update as often as I can, 'kay?**

**ON WITH THE SHOW! XD**

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Carrying a sharpened stick, Thorn ran through the dense jungle. She didn't care if trees tore at her; she was hungry. She didn't care if she was out of her territory, she was starving. And she'd do anything for some food.

She snapped to attention as she heard a bird caw. Scanning through the treetops, she saw a large parrot staring at her. Clenching her stake, Thorn prepared to throw it... until someone grabbed her from behind.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" It was Len, lips twisted in a snarl. "You're on my territory; get out!"

"All the food in my territory's migrated to your territory and I'm hungry!"

"I don't care," he growled. "If you come here without any good reason another time, I will kill you and _eat you_." The machete he waved threateningly made his point clear. Len was still taller than Thorn, and could overpower her if he wanted to. "Do you understand me?"

"Fine, I'm going," she said in an angry whisper. "But that means you are no longer welcome on my land, either."

Len pointed towards her territory with his machete. "I get it. Just go."

"Fine, I'm going!" she yelled.

"Good!"

* * *

Thorn had ended up getting some fish. She had accidentally stabbed her foot in the process, but she still ended up with food. When she reached her cave, December was sitting at the edge of the cave, leaning his head against the cool stone wall.

"December, are you hungry?" Thorn asked quietly. To her surprise, he actually looked at her.

"No." Once he had answered, he turned his head back to its first position, staring off at the beach.

"I don't care if you're not hungry," Thorn retorted. "You have to eat. Now." She handed him a fish. He just looked at the fish, which seemed to stare back at him with clouded, unseeing eyes. "Come on," she said pleadingly. "Please?"

December looked up at her again, and nodded, resigned. He picked at the fish with his nails, prying out the meat.

"Are you sure you don't want it cooked or anything...?"

This time, he ignored her, instead popping a piece of meat into his mouth. He ate the fish slowly, but he eventually ate the whole thing, including the organs and eyes.

"Do you want the bones or anything...?"

"No."

"Okay, then I'll take 'em." She grabbed the bones and walked to the beach, where she washed them with seawater. When she got back to the cave, she deposited them in a pile of bones she'd been saving.

She didn't know why she kept the bones. At first, she figured that she'd be able to use them for something, but she never did. The pile of bones kept amassing, as she killed and ate birds, fish, and even small mammals; but she would not do anything with them. Occasionally, she'd sift through them, trying to set out the skeletons as they were before she killed them, but with no success.

Only once had December complained about the ever-growing hoard of bones. That had happened before he became lethargic and unhelpful; about two years ago. He had said that they reeked of death and depressed him. Thorn had told him to deal with it, and that was all he said of it again.

After she dropped the fish bones in the pile, Thorn lay next to her beloved bone-heap and tried to sleep. In her opinion, it had been a long day (though it was mid-afternoon) and she was tired. As she drifted off, it seemed to her like the bones whispered, lulling her away into her dreams...

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She awoke at night. December looked like he was asleep, and the full moon was out.

Thorn felt a strange, reckless exhilaration coursing through her veins. She grabbed one of the sharper bones from her bone-heap and rushed through the jungle into Len's territory.

She came back with two birds, feet tied together with vines.

"Take that, Len," she whispered triumphantly. "Let's see you eat me now."

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**Yay for another chapter! Please review!**

**Next chapter is called: He's Got A Gun!**

**That's the actual name.**

**And I swear, the flock WILL be in this story. Really. **


End file.
